


Sky and Moon, Part II

by bendy_quill



Series: Moon and Stars [4]
Category: Blades of Light and Shadow (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:41:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23975446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bendy_quill/pseuds/bendy_quill
Summary: The raging storm swells within him and raises bumps along his flesh, draws small gasps from her throat, and further stokes the flame roaring within her. It happens to all with the the gift—magic draws from nature and the body is perfectly natural in all its splendor. Where his power sparks, hers consumes. They feed each other—feed from each other—hands searching, lips tasting, tongues tracing, and hearts swelling as they devour every bit of desire the other provides.
Relationships: Tyril Starfury/Main Character (Blades of Light and Shadow), Tyril Starfury/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Moon and Stars [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1722727
Kudos: 5





	Sky and Moon, Part II

Gallius, the Unmoving. She swallowed her sisters and became the immovable, bare-naked creature that looms over all Morella. Her cracked surface and scattered pieces were the final result of her violent consumption, so the legend says. While her sisters accepted their fate, their bodies writhed and screamed when it came time to fulfill that destiny.

Confronting the inevitable remains difficult even for the gods it seems.

The moon hangs high in the sky, bathing the earth in pale light that faintly illuminates all the move about the realm. The first thing he notices is that Imtura remains missing from camp. Her words to him may change things depending if his stubbornness continues to hold him hostage. Nia sits absently scratching a sleeping Threep, an occasional smile tugging at her lips when he purrs and rubs at his face with a paw. Tyril remains in the shadows for now and watches carefully as Mal slowly trudges through the camp.

“She was trying to kill me,” he sighs, exasperated. He drops onto the log he was sitting on hours ago and ignores Nia’s stifled laughter.

“I’m sure you would’ve been dead by now if she desired such a thing!” she explains.

“You think you know her sooo well until she’s got you pinned between a rock and a hard place while she’s,” he frantically waves a hand, “throwing fireballs about! I want to be happy that she’s getting better at battle magic but then she singes my arse and I have to remind myself she’s trying to kill people when she does that.”

Tyril’s head bows—Ashala came to him on a night he was keeping watch asking about elven battle magic. She’s still searching for answers to questions she isn’t ready to know. 

Even with the markings on her and the extensive teachings her parents bestow upon her, she is not fully knowledgable of elven practices. He gave in then, the culmination of their late nights together leading him down a path of curiosity he’s apparently decided to indulge.

Mal sighs and props himself up on his arms. “That Ashala is something else.”

“You’ve mentioned that before,” Nia says, gently setting Threep on the ground. She rises and reaches out to warm her hands over the fire. “Would it be too forward to ask if anything…er…if you two might…?”

A heavy silence hangs between the two of them for a long while and Nia looks up. Mal’s entire game is deception and sleight of hands—if there ever was a moment he let his true feelings slip through, he’s done well to conceal them. Tyril waits, his gaze briefly flicking towards the direction beyond the trees where Ashala still remains.

“It’s been tense around here,” Mal says instead. A part of Tyril seizes up but he remembers himself quickly. Mal’s eyes focus straight ahead and his brow furrows. “Tyril and Imtura still out there?”

Nia shrugs. “I saw Imtura a little earlier but Tyril hasn’t come back yet.”

“Figures…” Mal mutters, lying back down.

He tries to ignore the venom dripping off the tip of his tongue. The resentment Tyril harbors isn’t for Mal—it should be for his own indecisiveness and for the coward that still crumples at the first sign of something gone wrong rather than facing his shortcomings.

“Hey, Nia—” She lifts her head and looks at Mal again. “You ever feel like you know something’s about to go wrong but you keep on wishing something else would happen? Like there’s a storm brewing—and it’s definitely coming—but some tiny part of you still hopes it’ll change course?”

Nia doesn’t answer for quite some time, choosing instead to stoke the dimming fire with carefully constructed orbs of light. Her magic bursts over the flames, reigniting the embers licking at the empty air all around.

“Sometimes,” she finally responds. “The way I’ve come to think of this world—all the bad things that happen in it—there are just some things out of our control and some things that just happen no matter how hard we try to change that course.”

Mal lets out a bark of laughter. “Of all the people! I thought you were going to rave about putting faith in the Light!”

Nia sighs. “I do believe in the strength and kindness that can come from trusting in the Light. I choose to believe that there is good that can come from what I’ve learned and that I can use that knowledge to help others. But all too often, people forget that the Light does not grant us omniscience and it cannot change fate on request.”

Tyril recedes further into the shadows, eyes briefly shutting and boy shuddering as he takes a breath. He knows the game of give and take, push and pull—Undermount shows him that the Light is a boon where faith is waning but it is not a being that grants wishes so easily. It gives knowledge and takes parts of the soul in exchange. Nature must maintain its balance.

“Is it wrong that I want something bad to happen?” Mal asks. “Not necessarily to a person, but just—say for a situation instead? As in I hope something doesn’t turn out a certain way so I don’t have to wonder if I’ve been wasting my time…”

Tyril shakes his head and beats down the bitterness that rises up in him. His ears twitch when Nia responds.

“I think its natural to wish for things to turn out in your favor. No one wants to lose anything—we all want what we truly desire in life. But even still, we can fail. Despite that, I choose to move forward and do what I can. I would rather try and then fail than rest on my laurels waiting for an outcome I can’t predict.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Each white mark is strategically placed, forming a trove of patterns that look all too familiar. His father once told him of a story about a house that submerged itself in the power that came from knowledge as opposed to the power that came from playing the grand political game. It was a house that dealt only in rediscovery. They often searched for old philosophies, literature, techniques, and magics—the only thing that mattered to them was reclaiming all the lost remnants of the Old Kingdom that were left in the wake of the Shadow Court’s destruction.

Ashala’s brands are similar to the ones his father described back then.

Lumeniese and Sabien: the tragedy of the twin trees,

Myyori, the Wandering Maiden,

Thyrithet and the White Bull—

She conceals the rest behind long black robes and the best leatherwork she can afford. His face heats and his eyes dart away thinking of all the times he laid up on nights wondering what the full work looks like.

Ashala’s hands extend out and away from her body, palms turned upward and brilliant balls of light pulsating in each hand. Energy pours from the marks, stirs deep inside him as her subconscious draws from the power all around her. It gives and she takes. Dew droplets from the tiniest blade of grass, a hidden insect stirring heat as its tiny legs frantically move—circling and funneling through that conduit that is her body into the flat of her palms. Nature provides and demands in the same breath, it cycles but she is smart enough to ask for the minimal. There is no need to be greedy with the Light.

He steps through the clearing and she ignores him.

Tyril’s fingers part and stretch slowly—the bitter taste of electricity from the skies tingles on his tongue and the crackle of static ripples up the length of his arm, raising locks of his hair on end. Sparks tingle through heated skin and his lips tremble. Small bolts of lightning pop and crack the air, some shooting out of his palm into the very ground around Ashala’s feet.

Her head perks up but she keeps her back to him. Ashala’s fingers twitch and her magic swallows the bolts of power he scatters at her feet. Piece by piece, she consumes everything. They’ve done this song and dance a million times—a process of giving and giving until the reserve deep inside him quivers just a bit. When she consumes enough, he drops his hand and shakes his head so his hair falls back into place.

Stray wind rustles the trees surrounding the clearing. He grips the hilt of one of his blades.

Fire blazes towards him and he leaps, crossing the distance in three strides before his blade collides with a transparent barrier. He grits his teeth and she barely tilts her head. Planting his foot, he pushes off the invisible construct and throws a hand up as bolts of ice fly past him. Fire arcs through the black night and cracks at his feet like a whip. The orange trail breaks from her palm and speeds towards him, its form shifting as blackened eyes and fangs descend from a burning maw.

Tyril cuts through the creature and pivots easily, blocking Ashala’s knife stabbing straight at his heart. Her golden eyes finally meet his, controlled rage swirling within the depths, and he throws his weight behind his blade. His mouth opens and she cracks him across the face with a wave of raw telepathic magic. He wipes the blood from his lip and slams her in the stomach with a blast of his own.

She flies back but tumbles onto her feet, skidding across the wet ground, and slaps the ground with her hand, raising a wall of dirt and grass from the bowels of the earth. Tyril braces, harnessing the subtle wind blowing through the clearing and halting it in place. He takes up a defensive stance with his blade and spins, cutting the first pillar of rock she throws at him right down the middle. Blow by blow, her hands mold and shape the earth, shooting piece by piece of stone at him. One by one, he switches, turns, and spins as the wind shapes his blade and in turn cuts down every block of earth coming towards him.

There’s a small shout that comes from her end and the wall comes careening towards him. A flick of his wrist and he quickly sucks the dew from the grass and traps the wall of dirt behind a cage of pure water. Tyril yanks the wall to the side where it collapses uselessly in a heap of mud.

He barely manages to catch her wrist still bearing the knife and arcing straight for his heart. The blade grazes his armor but her free hand lifts and he’s forced to drop his sword to grab the wrist holding a ball of fire in her palm. They stare deep into each other’s eyes—the controlled anger is no longer controlled.

Hurt flits through her gaze and he wants to shrivel up. Yearning follows, but the tears well up in the corners of her eyes and he knows what this is about. He squeezes her wrist painfully tight, pressing his thumb and middle finger on her pressure points, forcing the blade out of her hand. His body pivots and they both go tumbling to the ground. One knee pins her body and he slams her wrists to the ground, funneling enough of his magic to drown out the power that courses through her.

Her head snaps back and a bitter laugh bubbles in her throat.

“Submit!” he snarls. “Ger avet tina’lashen!”

“Speak plainly, fool!” she spits back, body thrashing under his weight. “I won’t give in to something I don’t understand!”

It cuts.

She can’t know the way her words slip through the chasm of his ears and buries deep in his head—he hasn’t exactly made this easy for either of them. Tyril squeezes her wrists and she finally looks at him, anger and confusion mixing in an uncomfortable union within her eyes. A tremble rises in him and he stares at her, dark hair falling all around her in a dark curtain.

Ashala holds his gaze for only another brief moment before she turns away. “Get off me.”

Tyril rises slowly and does nothing when she climbs back to her feet. He watches her back for a time as she tears through the belongings wrapped on the ground. His mouth opens but no sound comes out.

Fixing things—he’s supposed to be fixing things. But every action rips open a new wound. He takes and she does nothing but give. How is he meant to fix this? How does he even start?

“What else would I expect?” His head snaps up in her direction. “I don’t know what you want. I try to see you and you won’t show me anything. I’m trying, Tyril, I am trying!” When she snaps towards him, his heart further shatters. Tears streak down her face but her furious expression doesn’t change. His fingers twitch and she angrily rubs her cheeks. “I just want you to talk to me!”

“Ashala—”

“I’m so tired, Tyril.”

He rises to his feet, both hands raised in the air. Silence hangs over the clearing, not a sound between them even as her tears fall and his heart slams violently against his ribcage. On her own, she seems so small.

Sex for the sake of it, romance built on political mobility, and a genuine love he ran away from because he couldn’t stomach the idea of being responsible for someone else’s feelings for him—everything about this couldn’t be further from the types of love he’s come to know.

Tyril takes a step forward and swallows a shaky breath—she doesn’t move.

“Throw it,” he says.

Her brow furrows. “Throw…it?”

He gestures at the item in her hand—a bottle of salve wrapped in a cloth. Tyril takes another step forward and points to his head. “Throw it.”

She looks at him as if he’s grown three heads. For all the awkwardness he’s generating, he might as well have. Her gaze flits to the bottle and back to him.

“I will do no such thing,” she says.

“Humor me—”

“No.”

His lips press together. “I just—”

“Throwing a bottle at you is not going to temper the frustration inside me.” She stuffs the bottle back into her pack and rounds on him, crossing her arms. “I do not exercise violence against the ones I love when I am angry at them.”

His hands flail.

“You just—” He looks around at the damage they’ve done—scorch marks streaking across the ground, a giant pile of mud and grass, and magic still teeming in the air. “You just tried to stab me!”

“Because I hate you.” He tries to ignore the way his heart shatters at the words finally tumbling from her lips. Ashala averts her gaze for a moment. Her hands gently rub at her arms. “I hate the way you look at me. I hate that your mouth opens but nothing real comes out anymore. I hate…a lot about you right now.” His head bows. “And you’ve done nothing to reverse these feelings,” she continues. “I never thought I’d yearn for the version of you I met in the beginning, always bemoaning humes and the simplistic education of elven culture they provided me. At least you—”

“I don’t!” He snaps, flinching as soon as the words leave his mouth. “I’m sorry…I didn’t…That wasn’t right of me to criticize—not then and certainly not now. What you’ve managed to learn—what your parents taught you—was impressive on its own. I never should have said those things.” She stares at him for a moment, eyes boring deep into him as he slowly approaches. He stands directly in front of her now but ensures there is an appropriate chasm of space between them. A rueful smile tugs at his lips. “I like to think I’ve changed. Or rather, that I’m trying to.”

“I…suppose you have. Somewhat.”

“Not in the ways that matter, unfortunately,” he says, laughing just a bit. His hands go limp at his sides because he knows he can’t trust himself. He can remember the last time she let him touch her unprompted. His hands flex recalling the memory of soft wrists and overworked hands. “The truth is stranger than you think. Or maybe it isn’t—I’m not entirely sure. I’m not usually this unprepared.”

“I can see that,” she says. Her silence is profound and he wonders for a moment if pressing any further is even worth the damage he’s already done.

“I would’ve been married by now.” He waits for her expression to change but it doesn’t. She knows enough about matters of nobility to know the idea isn’t unusual, but he hasn’t exactly been forthright either. “My wife would’ve been a good marriage match but I never would’ve slept with her. Ours was a bond built on friendship and our union would’ve been purely political.”

Her eyes search his. “And she was good to you? She cared for you as you did for her?”

“This is…” His voice wavers at first. “I want to say ‘yes,’ because she did in the beginning. She changed—her demeanor shed and her words became more cruel as time went on. It’s…” Tyril shakes his head and pushes on. “This…This isn’t what I…I was trying to…”

She gives him the room to let the silence fester for a moment, neither one of them quite sure how to proceed from here. It’s a story for another time but there is a fundamental purpose. He swallows and stares at her.

“I’m afraid of you,” he starts. “People tried to kill me in Undermount—outside of it too, but I was never afraid of what came next. I was damn near a child when my parents decided my place as heir and I shouldered that burden without question.” He thinks of the bright eyed boy he once was—the arrogant prince and the studious pupil. A life a luxury and all he ever wanted was always at his fingertips, yet none of that could prepare him for this moment. “The first person who told me he loved me—I ran away from him. His family discovered our relationship and encouraged him to use me for their gain—he told them he would be disowned first and confessed to me later that week.”

Her eyes widen and her mouth opens. “Why?”

“Because I was a fool,” he answers and scrubs a hand through his hair. “Love is so perfectly defined in our culture yet it isn’t until now that I’ve realized just how terrifying the notion truly is.” Tyril pauses for a long moment. “I’ve run from so much—from Lusehene, from my shame… I’m tired too, Ashala. I’m so incredibly tired.”

She touches his shoulder and the act almost steals the breath from him in an instant, the very thing he’s wanted since he saw her hours ago—a gentle and warm hand, heat pulsing through her palm. She pulls away too quickly but her mark already lingers. He can’t bear it anymore.

“You are running from me?” she asks. She pities him and he hates it. He hates that she can understand his meanings so quickly when he’s not trying and he hates that he has to show her all the mangled emotions inside of him when he finally wants to let her understand. “Was that all it was? Was I so blinded by my anger that I refused to see it? Perhaps we are both cowards, Tyril. Maybe we both aren’t so good at anything.”

“No, don’t. It was me that ran away,” he whispers.

“Yet it’s always you that comes back,” she counters. Ashala shakes her head. “You claim you are afraid but you want to try anyway? I’ve never known a more indecisive man.”

“Indecisive…” He repeats, lips quirking a bit.

His choices used to be so easy when everything was for house and glory. Casting another house into ruin was a feat he could pull off without a second thought. Playing on old feuds and manipulating others was an art he mastered as a child. Love was no less a political tool. Love built on powerful friendships, love built on romantic and sexual bonds, love of family, love of all kinds has always been ingrained within Undermount’s society, holding up its foundations and crumbling just as easily when the moment calls for it.

But it isn’t as simple as knowing how to use and shape it when necessary. He knew what his former lovers meant when they told him they loved him—safety, security, and escapism. Undermount is a society that demands much and relies on total obedience to the systems that keep it running. Playing the game is how one survives.

He could love them—he did love them. But he loved the system that provided him comfort much more.

He loved knowing his feelings were his own and his motivations didn’t need further interrogation. He loved knowing he was protected because he knew how to play the game correctly. He loved so many and they loved him too, but he loved knowing that he never had to worry about getting hurt because the game was the best lover he ever had—it would only betray him if he didn’t play it right.

“I’m afraid of you,” he says softly, eyes locking with Ashala’s. His body angles closer and she doesn’t move. He wishes she would move. Do something—run away from him. “I am afraid of what this is doing to me—what this will inevitably do to me.”

She blinks. “Speak plainly.”

Tyril stares deep into her eyes and he lifts his hands, gently and slowly. Fingertips graze the dark fabric clinging to her shoulders and her warmth weakly filters through the barrier. The first time he laid a hand upon her was her shoulders, strong and sure, the weight of the entire world resting on each as her journey pulls her along. She flinches very slightly but doesn’t break their gaze.

“These feelings in me are entirely new,” he starts. He shuffles closer, fills the entire space between them. “Trepidation, hesitation—I open my mouth to say something and my thoughts are overwhelmed by what my heart feels. I know the parts of me that have felt something like this before and my instinct is telling me that the cost outweighs the…the pain that vulnerability brings…” Ashala watches him quietly. His jaw works and his fingers curl, scraping the fabric clinging to her body. “I care about you. It’s strange even to say it out loud because it’s everything I swore I wouldn’t do out here. My mission is supposed to come before everything.”

“Why?” Her hands clasp his on her shoulders. “Why treat yourself this way? To what end?”

“It’s how I survived Undermount. Love is not foreign but it isn’t as freely given either.” Arrindale, Pythia, Lusehene—all he gave but each coming with insurmountable cost. What would he give in exchange for these bonds? What would they give in return? “Lovers, marriages, friendships—everything I ever felt and felt with someone outside of family was built on costs and benefits. What did a friendship earn me? What would I lose in exchange for a night of unattached sex? Thoughts, feelings—everything was a weight on my back. You called me indecisive but back then? Every choice I made was clear.”

Her quiet conceals a building storm, the surge of which will either break his heart for the last time or terrify him even further.

“Tyril…” She grips his wrists. “I don’t—”

“The first man I ever laid with seduced me for the sake of advancing his family’s station,” he interrupts. “Our relationship was built on a love that was fleeting at best but our intentions were clear. When I laid with a woman, our love was built on physical desire only. She needed an outlet and I used her as she used me—we understood the intent clearly.” His fingers spread and he squeezes her shoulders. “I have always been sure, always. I have taken risks and weighed the outcomes so many times in my head it even happens in my sleep. But now? Now I’m risking it all knowing that this fight—this war against the Shadow Court—could very well snatch it from me again!”

She grips him by the shoulders and pulls him close. Their foreheads touch and the breath rushes out of his lungs. Warmth abound everywhere and he missed this. He missed her touch, her skin, her smell, her power—and he’s so afraid of how quickly everything comes down all around him at her gentle urging.

“Tyril…” Ashala whispers, arms winding around his middle now. “Oh, you foolish, foolish man. Who told you to do this alone? Why would you think the burden is only yours to bear?”

“Because I am a prideful idiot,” he answers in a shaky breath. His hands cup her face and they part so he can look into her eyes—her haunting golden eyes that have kept him up at night and stolen every minute he’s spent in his dreams. “I care for you. I want you. I told myself I wouldn’t do this until my mission was completed but I care for you so much it hurts. I care for you so much it frightens me.”

“Of course you wait until now to say these things.” Tears prick the corners of her eyes and he catches them with his thumbs. “You are such a confusing man, you know? Irritated one minute and then thoughtful the next—you say things that make me wish you’d let me grow close and now you say I scare you?” She leans into him and smiles. “I see this man—beautiful and regal—an elf like I dreamed of once. A prince, even. Then you ran into me in the street and almost drew a blade on me. I hated you but then I saw you. You showed me and I showed you too. I stopped trying to show anyone anything about me for so long and then you…”

“I don’t know what happens from here,” he says, gently resting his forehead upon hers. “I don’t know if it’s…if I’ve squandered what we have but I wanted you to know. I needed you to know that my feelings—complicated as they are—remain genuine.”

They are trembling in each other’s grasps, shaking and breathing in shuddering gasps as the weight of everything lays itself bare beneath the moonlit night. Ashala tucks her head to his chest and he lets her listen to his heart beating hard in his chest. Tyril wipes stray tears from her tattooed cheeks and carefully tucks her locs away so he can see her—really see her.

He feels her shift and pulls back. Their distance leaves him yearning but she does not go far.

“Then show me,” she says. “No more guessing. You show me this truth from now on and you claim it if this is your desire.”

“It is,” he answers quickly. He slides a hand down her neck and soothingly rubs his thumb along her jaw. “I want this—I want you. But I cannot promise it will be easy now that the truth is known.”

“Show me anyway.” She offers the softest smile he has ever seen, the trepidation in her eyes still prevalent but the relief in her is just as apparent. He shares a smile of his own and he can feel it in his heart too—the fear and the anxiousness. “If we knew all the answers, things would be so simple but the world does not work this way. We take risks. We try things anyway because it’s within our nature.”

The old him would’ve disagreed. The old him was a man ruled by logic and the art of tipping the scales in his favor. That man was a fool.

And in many ways, he still is.

“My hands are still shaking,” he says, looking down where one of her hands now intertwine with his. She squeezes.

“Mine are too.”

When their eyes meet, he is lost along a golden path that winds around junctures and roads that seem never-ending. There is confusion but some parts certainty, calm but flutters of nervousness, and he wonders what she can see in the depths of his eyes. He gently lifts a hand and caresses her cheeks with his thumb—

And then her jaw—

Until he reaches her lips.

Tyril swallows.

“Can I…I want to…” he whispers, leaning closer. He glances up and golden pools swirl with heat, curiosity, and desire. Her hands lie flat upon his armored chest.

“Say it…” Tyril pulls her in, lips just barely hovering over hers, and her eyes flutter as she inhales sharply. Her fingers curl and scrape along the metal plate. “Say it, please.”

Time slows and the world around them dissolves into darkness save for the pale moonlight shining down on them. A tempest builds within him. Something ancient rumbles in his heart and branches throughout his body. Static ripples from fingers, down to his body, legs, and ends in his toes. Energy gathers all around, bits and pieces adding to the power already stirring within.

“I want to kiss you…”

Her lips—beautiful, wondrous lips—part and he shivers.

“Come.”

Slowly at first. He wants to savor it—hold it close to him when he dreams at night and find himself yearning miserably when the morning takes him away. There is no telling which presses forward first but they meet in a clash of heat and crackling energy. A sweet taste rolls across the tip of his tongue and when he draws a short breath, a stream of flame trickles down his throat. He gasps again, parting and looking into her eyes.

Molten and golden depths…

Again and their lips connect while their hands scrabble for purchase, bodies molding into each other, and pure fire burning them from the inside out. His grip hardens as he lures her in with a hand on her neck. The other slips down and settles at the small of her back, trapping her to him, and a gentle sigh slips from him as her fingers rake through his hair and grip back.

Oh, so many sensations he will commit to memory. Billowing smoke floods his lungs as fire steadily funnels through every muscle in his body and brands her desire onto his very bones. Nails drag through his tresses and burrow into his scalp, pulling and soothing him in one as their lips part and their breathing grows more uneven. That ancient and terrifying power buried deep bubbles and cracks through the surface, sparks snapping beneath his fingertips and he swallows the moan she releases.

The raging storm swells within him and raises bumps along his flesh, draws small gasps from her throat, and further stokes the flame roaring within her. It happens to all with the the gift—magic draws from nature and the body is perfectly natural in all its splendor. Where his power sparks, hers consumes. They feed each other—feed from each other—hands searching, lips tasting, tongues tracing, and hearts swelling as they devour every bit of desire the other provides.

It ends as soon as it begins with both struggling to catch their breath. Tyril rests his forehead upon hers, eyes still closed and hands still squeezing her tight where they rest. She is sweeter than the sweetest wine he has ever tasted and he swears he will never get used to this heady feeling.

His eyes crack open and he watches her carefully. A trembling hand hovers close to her lips but she dare not touch them. Their magic lingers where their bodies touched, burning a sensual path along skin and hair. Her golden eyes meet his and his heart thrums anew.

A long time passes before either of them speak.

“This is dangerous,” she whispers hoarsely. Tyril slightly bows his head but his face remains passive. Ashala rests her hand on her chest and trails her fingers up her neck, grasping at his hand still gently clutching her. “Moon and stars—you might kill me well before this grows into something much deeper.”

He blinks at first, ears twitching as he repeats her words in his head, and then a mischievous smile spreads across his face.

“Then I apologize in advance,” he shifts his hand and gently brushes a thumb across her cheek, “because I truly don’t want to return to how things were before.”

“Gods forbid, I refuse to tolerate that again.” A guilty look flashes in her eyes and she presses when he says nothing in return. “But we understand each other now, yes? Is it safe to claim that there is something here that we both want?”

His heart flutters—we.

“Yes…Yes, I want you,” he affirms. He opens his mouth but then closes it. It is far too easy to move too quickly after this but he knows better. At least, he hopes he does. “I cannot promise that this is going to be easy moving forward. This is still very new to me but I won’t drag my feet as I did before. What we have,” he drops a hand and laces their fingers together, “I don’t want to lose this feeling any time soon. I want to continue nurturing it for as long as you’ll allow me the privilege.”

She rolls her eyes though a smile still spreads across her face.

“These words you string together…they’re lofty. But I do trust that you are earnest in this desire of yours,” she says. Ashala squeezes his hand and raises her head. “I’ve known others that had the gift speech, much like you do. Many of them had no qualms about using that gift to attain things I should not have given. Words are lovely but…there’s always more. More to show, more to give…”

His lips quirk though his heart still pounds in his chest. Undermount taught him many lessons critical to his survival outside the walls, but there are some things he is all too glad to shed. Concealing the truth for personal gain works only for so long, but even still there are thing he knows they both aren’t ready to reveal just yet.

And it’s alright.

Not knowing what happens next won’t terrify him as much now that things are more certain. He can proceed—they can proceed—and he will teach his hardened heart that there are other ways to feel aside from cautious.

They walk back in silence, nothing stirring save for the rustle of the leaves and their boots crunching twigs beneath their feet. Tyril looks down at Ashala and she looks back up at him, their shoulders brushing against one another as they quietly make their way back to camp.


End file.
